Fire—including intense, high-severity fire—is an inevitable part of the landscape in the Northern Rockies. How land managers respond to the presence of fire is a reflection of many different values and priorities.These include: protecting human lives, including the public and fire personnel; protecting buildings, infrastructure, and the built environment; supporting natural ecological processes, including the presence of fire; and managing for many diverse species and habitats within the park, some of which benefit from fire and some of which do not. It’s quite a balancing act! Over time, attitudes about fire management in national parks have evolved. The agency's first plans called for full fire suppression—putting every fire out as soon as possible after it was detected. However, this strategy required more resources than the young National Park Service had, particularly in the 1910s and 20s. But the arrival of the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s contributed a critical labor source. The CCC helped the NPS and other land management agencies develop an infrastructure for fire suppression—crews of workers, new fire lookouts to detect fire starts, and trails and roads through the backcountry to help crews access and put out fires. 
NPS Photo By the 1960s, scientists were starting to recognize the destructiveness of these suppression tactics, as well as the importance of fire to many ecosystems—something many Indigenous tribes have understood since time immemorial. Land management agencies slowly began to change their policies and their tactics to support some fire on the landscape. Learn more about this history in an upcoming episode of Glacier’s podcast, Headwaters, called “Switchback | Living with Fire (and Each Other)" that will be released in March 2025. Today, the National Park Service combines many disciplines to more holistically manage fire, including fire suppression operations, fire ecology science and monitoring, prescribed fire, and managing naturally-ignited fires to play their natural role. In Glacier, as in other national parks, some fires will always be suppressed (put out). These circumstances include a fire burning too close to developed areas, a fire starts when weather conditions could lead to major fire growth, or when fire activity is intense nationwide and national firefighting resources that could come to assist are limited. Any human-caused fires are suppressed. Naturally ignited (lightning-caused fires) are closely monitored and managed within limits in order to benefit the park landscape as much as possible. Fire staff use computer models and forecasts of where the fire may spread—and how quickly—to assess the potential risk to people and property. If need be, crews can set up protective measures for structures, like backcountry cabins, that may be at risk. Strategies can change as the incident develops too—for example, managers could choose to take suppression actions on one side of a fire if it moved toward a developed area. In all cases, the highest priority is the safety of the public and fire personnel. Explore stories about fire management, fire ecology, and fire and communities from across the NPS. 
NPS Photo Prescribed Burns Under certain conditions and after careful planning, firefighters start and monitor fires that will benefit the ecosystem. Prescribed fire is an important fire management tool. A scientific prescription for each prescribed fire describes specific objectives, fuels, size, and the precise environmental conditions under which it will burn. If the fire moves outside the predetermined area, the fire will be suppressed. The fire may be designed to create a mosaic of diverse habitats for plants and animals, to help an endangered species recover, or to reduce fuels near developed areas to thereby prevent a destructive fire. Prescribed burning can be an effective tool to remove fuels from the path of a future unwanted fire, which in turn will help protect buildings, cultural resources, critical natural resources and habitat.
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Last updated: November 13, 2024